


Birds of Prey Quarantine Anthology

by septimaaliceohhey



Category: Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020)
Genre: Anthology, Breaking the Fourth Wall, Charcuterie, Comedy, Coronavirus, Crushes, Dinah knows how to cut hair, F/F, Gen, Hair Dye, Haircuts, Harley Quinn is feral, Humor, Ice Cream, One Shot Collection, Say So by Doja Cat, Spotify, and they were roomates, are they crushing or just hyped to be friends?, fourth wall? what fourth wall, harley owns a bedazzler, lets just roll with it, mentions of Grimes and Elon musk, oh my god they were roommates, quarantine hair, self quarantine, this random chapter is so much longer than the others, unauthorized diy projects, were only on chapter two and these are already getting weird, yes the narrator is a character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:27:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24203614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/septimaaliceohhey/pseuds/septimaaliceohhey
Summary: Gotham's shut down all nonessential businesses, and the Birds are...well, they're trying.Will Renee figure out how to use zoom?Will Harley ever stop bedazzling things?Will Helena go crazy being cooped up?Will Dinah's a/c stop breaking?All that and more in the Birds of Prey Quarantine Anthology!Chapter Five: Helena gets a haircut (don't worry, she didn't leave her apartment).
Relationships: Helena Bertinelli/Dinah Lance
Comments: 8
Kudos: 76





	1. The Great Bedazzling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm gonna try to have each chapter be a stand alone story, though some may mention events of other stories. 
> 
> Anyway, I'm going to try and keep these fun and funny, because god knows we all need some fun right now.

“Hey, kid!” Harley yelled. “Our masks came in the mail!” 

“Oh, dope. I’ll be there in a sec.” Cass responded from the sofa. 

There was a crunching noise that Cass had learned to recognize as the sound of Harley destroying a cardboard box to get at what was inside. 

“Don’t get your hopes up, Cass. They’re kinda...boring.” 

Harley plunked down next to Cass on the sofa, an exaggerated frown across her face, holding a plain pink cloth mask. 

“Yeah, that is kinda boring.” Cass said. 

They both stared at the mask for a moment. 

The mask said nothing. 

“Ooh!” Harley jumped up, “I have an idea!” 

She rifled through the cabinets for a moment before grabbing something that looked like a weird white plastic sewing machine/stapler combination, which she held out to Cass. 

“What is it?” 

Harley’s jaw dropped. 

“It’s a bedazzler!” Cass still looked confused, so Harley continued. “You’ve never heard of a fuckin’ bedazzler? They were one of those ‘as-seen-on-TV' things, but I never got one as a kid. Something made me think of them a while back, and you know my impulse control is shoddy at best—” 

Cass nodded her agreement. 

“--so naturally I had to have one.” 

“OK, but what does it do?” 

“It is a bedazzler! It fucking bedazzles!” 

“I’m just gonna google it, Harley.” 

“Can you also look up how to use it, because I’ve forgotten?” Harley got back up and crossed to one of the baskets of random junk on the floor. “I’m gonna find the little plastic jewel things.” 

An awkwardly long amount of time later, Harley (plastic bag of jewels in hand) and Cass were crouched around Cass’s phone, propped up on the low table, playing an extremely dated video on how to bedazzle. 

“So you put the bead thing on the metal thing and then you push down on the top part. Seems...doable.” Cass said, slowly.

“Nothing advertised on TV infomercials is ever intuitive or simple. Trust me kid--I have experience with stuff like this.” 

Cass grabbed the bedazzler, and, muttering the directions to herself, positioned the bead, and pushed the top down.

The bead didn’t stick. 

Six beads later, she finally got it to work. 

Harley, who had been alternately watching raptly and rambling on about tax evasion or something, clapped in excitement. 

“Cass, lemme try!” 

She grabbed the bedazzler and somehow, magically, the first bead stuck. 

“How did you do that on the first try?” Cass asked in disbelief. 

“Clearly, I’m just that fuckin’ talented.” 

“Or it’s just beginner’s luck. See, that second one you did just fell off.” 

“Well, maybe you’re jinxing it, Cass.” Harley said, picking up the fallen bead. 

Cass got up from the sofa. “Wanna pop tart?” 

“Would I ever turn down a pop tart?” 

Cass grabbed a packet of pop tarts and two mismatched plates. She ripped open the foil and set one pop tart on each plate. She dumped the plates on the table, curled up next to Harley, pulled up a video on infomercial toys, and waited patiently for her turn with the bedazzler. 

“Hey kid, three guesses about what I’m making.” Harley said. 

Cass surveyed the small piles of pink, purple, and blue beads Harley had made. 

“Bisexual pride flag?” 

“Yep! High five for getting that on the first try.” Harley paused. “How did you get that on the first try? I used to be able to stump you with these things.” 

“I hate to break it to you, Harley. I think you’re becoming predictable.” Cass teased. 

“Me? Predictable? Never!” Harley said, pretending to be offended. 

“Ok, fine. The only predictable thing about you is that you’ll always do the most feral or unpredictable thing.” 

“Much better. I’ll accept that.” Harley held up her mask, now a sparkly bisexual pride flag. 

“And I’ll take _that._ ” Cass said, grabbing the bedazzler and the baggie of beads. 

She grabbed a red mask from the mask box and set to bedazzling. 

After a few minutes of comfortable silence, broken only by the sound of Harley eating a pop tart and whatever the noise a bedazzler makes is, Cass held up her masterpiece. 

“It’s not supposed to be anything. I just thought it was cool.” Cass said. It was pretty cool; the plain red mask had been covered in a few swirly lines of orange gems. 

“It kinda looks like fire,” Harley though for a minute. “If you turn your head and squint a little, ya know.” 

They both turned their heads and squinted a little. 

“Ok, Harley. Maybe. Kinda. Wait! I see it.” 

The orange swirls did, in fact, look like a fire (if you turned your head and squinted, that is). 

“Poi-fect!” Harley said. (Whether saying “poi-fect” was Harley’s accent or just one of the many weird things she said is up for debate). “Do you wanna go buy some hair dye? This is getting boring.” 

And so, newly bedazzled masks on, Harley and Cass bounced off to the store in search of hair dye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to check out my Tumblr @wordsoflittlewisdom for headcanons and other fun stuff!
> 
> If you have any ideas for the Birds in self-quarantine, feel free to send me an ask (or comment).


	2. A Conversation with the Narrator

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harley talks to the narrator.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's a little...strange, but I think it's genuinely funny.

Harley was sitting in her apartment. Cass was napping, as teenagers are wont to do, so Harley was-- 

“Hey! You!” Harley said to...well, I'm not sure who she was talking to. “Not sure who I’m talkin’ to.” She rolled her eyes. “You’re the only one here. I’m talking to _you_.” 

Of course, Harley couldn’t be talking to me. I’m just the narrator. 

“Oh my fuckin’ god. That’s literally why I’m talking to you. You’re the narrator. Who else am I supposed to talk to?” She said testily. “Don’t call me testy!” 

**Sorry.**

“Apology accepted!” she said brightly and got up to go get some ice cream. “How’d you know I was going to get ice cream? Oh! Lemme guess, you’re telling this story in third person limited point of view, and I’m the character whose thoughts we get to hear.” 

**Bingo!**

“All I remember from middle school is points of view and that the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell.” 

**Don’t we all.**

“You said it. Want some ice cream? Can you even eat ice cream?” 

**I guess so. I doubt you’ve heard of any of the flavors I like, though.**

“Try me!” Harley’s eyes were bright. 

She crossed from the couch to the freezer, to go get said ice cream. 

“You don’t have to include these boring descriptions of everything I do.” 

**They're for the audience! I’m pushing it by talking to you, but not narrating...I could get in big trouble for that.**

“Concerned about job security? Usually I’d call you a chump, but in these uncertain times, I think I should suspend judgement.” 

Harley grabbed a slightly battered tub of ice cream from her freezer. 

“Seriously though, what sorts of ice cream do narrators get to eat?” 

**Well, my favorite flavor is called ....////.,,/ <>,/./.,>,.**

“Don’t think I have that. Ooh! You should go help Grimes and Elon Musk name their baby.” 

**If you ask me, I think whatever they named their kid could constitute cultural appropriation.**

“Whose culture is being appropriated?” 

**Interdimensional being culture. We have a lot of cultural pride.**

“Huh. Never would have guessed.” 

**Yeah...us narrators get more recognition than most interdimensional beings. Technically, I think we’re a subset of cryptids related to eldritch monstrosities.**

“Like the fuckin...squid...thing? Fuck! What’s it called? Got it! Cthulu.” 

**Yeah, like Cthulu. He’s kind of a celebrity to most of us interdimensional beings.**

“Well, let me say, I thought this whole quarantine thing was going to be incredibly dull, but this is easily the fifth weirdest thing that’s ever happened to me.” 

Harley licked the last bit of ice cream off her spoon—Wait! I forgot to narrate. 

**We can continue this conversation when I catch the reader up.**

So, Harley scrabbled around the drawers of her kitchen to find an ice cream scoop, and then scrabbled around in her-- 

“Just FYI, you said ‘scrabbled’ twice.” 

**I was going for a sort of repetition thing. Did it just sound weird?**

“Yeah.” She looked up at me. “I think the stress of the situation is showing in your narration.” 

I took a moment to collect my thoughts and continued. 

Harley had grabbed the ice cream tub, gotten a scoop and a pink plastic bowl, and pried the lid of the tub to reveal the ice cream so garishly bright with food dye that it both rivaled and complemented Harley’s outfit: some sort of matching sweatpants and sweater thing that looked like six neon sweatpants and sweater things had been assembled into a Frankenstein lounge set. 

“That was good!” She clapped. “It did used to be six different neon lounge sets! How did you get that? Oh yeah, narrator powers. Though, and I hate to nitpick, but it’s not a Frankenstein lounge set, it’s a Frankenstein’s _monster_ lounge set.” 

**Would it be better to call you Frankenstein and...that outfit...your Frankenstein’s monster? Like Frankenstein's lounge set?**

“Sure!” She chirped, nodding.

**How did you make that thing? I’m honestly curious.**

“Well, I got six neon lounge sets and a pair of scissors, and a sewing machine, and then I just let my inspiration lead the way.” 

**Huh. Sounds fun.**

“It really is.” 

**What’s it like being a genre-aware protagonist?**

“Huh. So I _am_ the protagonist. Well, I always knew I was interesting enough to be a protagonist, but when your story involves a group getting together—well, it’s a bit of a lottery whether you’ll actually get to be a lead.”  
**Yeah, nothing to worry about there, your story is quite you-centric.**

“I always knew I would be a star!” 

**Speaking of star, did you know you got to narrate your own movie?**

“I fuckin’ did! I like to think I have good storytelling skills.” 

**You certainly have creativity.**

“Thanks!” She said brightly. “That reminds me—I made you a thesaurus.” 

**Why?**

“Well, it wasn’t for you specifically, but I made it and I think you need it more than me. It’s a special guide to all the slang I use.” 

**OK, you’ve told me what it is, but you still haven’t told me why you’re giving it to me.**

“To spruce up your narration, of course. Not that you aren’t doing a fuckin’ fabulous job, but if I can’t tell my own story, you can at least tell it my way.” 

**Once more, with feeling** I muttered. 

“What?” 

**Nothing. Just something I heard a lot in drama school.**

“Narrators have to go to drama school?” 

**No.**

“Then why’d you call it that?” 

**You know how when people translate books into other languages, some words don’t really translate, so they have to use the next closest thing?”**

“Yeah,” 

**Think of it like that**

She passed me the thesaurus. I'm not totally sure how she passed a thesaurus to me, but somehow, she did. I took a quick sniff. It seemed interesting, so I quickly absorbed all the knowledge contained within it and set to narrating. 

Cass was still conked out, and Harley thought of when they first met, when Cass had been in the can for pinchin’ that ice, and she’d had to beat up all those goons, and then _more_ goons had shown up— 

“Those _were_ some of my most fantabulous takedowns.” 

**Harley, who’s narrating?**

“Sorry!” She said, waving to me. “It was lovely talking to you!” 

**It was nice talking to you, too, Harley.**

And so I left her there and hoped I wouldn’t get yelled at by my superiors for breaking the fourth wall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that was weird. 
> 
> There's a story about Dinah and Helena in the works, and I have some ideas for a Renee story and a Roman story.


	3. What I Like

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Helena moves in with Dinah.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story's a little different from the others (and longer) but I wanted to write something about Dinah and Helena that could be read as romantic crushes or just being really excited about friendship, partly because the line between the two can be pretty fine in the real world.

Dinah Lance was bored. She was lying on her neatly made bed, looking out at her completely reorganized bedroom. She’d finally moved into a bigger apartment, funded partially by Helena’s money. 

Dinah faintly heard her phone ring and reached over to grab it from the nightstand. Shit! Where was it? She scrabbled around in the drawers of her nightstand before finally finding it. 

“Yeah?” She said into the reciever. 

“Dinah?” It was Helena. “Is this a bad time?” 

“No, no. I’m good. What’s up?” 

“I...uh...you know how I’m staying at a motel while I apartment hunt?” 

“Yeah, why?” 

“Well, the motel’s gonna kick me out because of the pandemic and I, um, is there any chance I can come live with you?” Helena asked. 

“Uh,” Dinah was what Cass would call “shooketh.” Helena wanted to come live with her? She liked Helena; she had the space-- 

“Dinah? Are you there? If you can’t take me that’s fine.” 

“No! Yeah.” Shit! Why was she being this awkward? “Yeah. You can stay with me. That’s fine.” 

“Great!” Helena responded quickly and enthusiastically. “Is tomorrow ok?” 

\--- 

Helena surveyed her tiny motel room. She didn’t have much in the way of clothes and personal items, so at least packing up would be easier.

Not just packing up, packing up to go to Dinah’s. God, she’d acted like such an idiot on the phone. Dinah had been so cool and then she’d said “great!” like an excessively chipper idiot. 

The important thing here was that she was moving in with Dinah.

There was something magnetic about Dinah, about her voice, and her smile, and the way conversation flowed freely between them like wine, and the way Dinah didn’t judge her, or treat her like she was fragile, and all those things, that somehow weren’t nearly enough to describe what made Dinah _Dinah_. 

_Stop being weird!_ Helena though to herself, throwing things into her small suitcase to distract herself. 

There was something strangely impersonal about most of the stuff she owned, and she knew it. All her clothes were made for practically and mobility, with specially designed pockets for weapons, all her toiletries were mostly generic brands. There were a only a few objects that hinted at a personality, at something beyond living in a kill or be killed world, like the silver eyeshadow she’d picked up at a Gotham Sephora, where she’d been overwhelmed the array of colors and fragrances, like the toothbrush that she’d spent way too much time digging through the display, in search of a purple one.

Maybe that’s what was special about Dinah. She was a warrior, but she was a hundred other things, too. That’s what Helena wanted. To be more than her past. 

That was a long-term project, however. For now, she needed to pack.

\--- 

Dinah woke up early the next day. She wasn’t sure when Helena was going to get there, but she wanted to be prepared.   
Prepared for what, exactly, she wasn’t sure. 

Helena had sounded alternately chill and excited on the call, and Dinah hoped she hadn’t come across as snippy or anything after her mad scramble to find her phone. 

For some reason, Dinah wanted to put her best foot forwards, with her close friend, during quarantine...she knew it was a little dumb, but she’d put on her slightly cuter sweatpants and even a little concealer. 

Her phone vibrated in her hand. It was a text from Helena. 

_I’ll be there in about fifteen minutes._

Dinah smiled to herself. Texting with Helena was fun because Helena had a bit of a tendency to text with perfect grammar and punctuation. Somehow, it really did capture the...what? The tone of her voice? Her way of speaking? Something like that. It was sorta endearing. Maybe Helena was on to something.

_sounds good_

Dinah texted back.

Her new apartment had a second bedroom that she’d cleared out for Helena. She’d finally been able to move out of her old place, and she really loved her new apartment. It was well-built and well-designed (and the AC never cut out) with two bedrooms, a small living room/kitchen/dining room setup, and two bathrooms, all at a reasonable price. Some blessings you just don’t question. 

Her phone vibrated.

_I’m outside._

_Can you buzz me in?_

It was Helena. 

_I can do better than that_ , Dinah thought, grabbing some flip-flops. 

She met Helena at the front door of the building. 

The street was deserted, excepting Helena and her small suitcase. 

“I don’t have much stuff.” Helena said. 

“Do you want me to help you carry that suitcase up?” Dinah felt a little stupid. Helena was strong and the suitcase was tiny. She didn’t need any help. “The stairs are kinda steep.” she added. There. That was better. 

“Yeah! Thanks.” Even if it was for something small, Dinah liked that Helena took her up on her offer of help. 

Helena took one end of the suitcase, Dinah took the other, and the maneuvered it up through the door, up the well-lit stairwell, and into Dinah’s apartment. 

“Wow! Dinah! This place is really nice.” 

“Thanks.” 

“It has a lot of personality.” 

Dinah smiled. When she’d first seen the apartment, it had been empty, but she’d since started to fill it with thrift store finds.   
“Thanks. I’ve been thrifting for décor for a while now, but the pandemic sorta put decorating on hold. Your room is just through that door there.” 

“Thanks for letting me stay. I really appreciate it.” 

There was an awkward pause. 

“I’ll go..unpack, I guess.” 

And so she did. 

\--- 

Well, ‘unpack’ wasn’t quite the right word. She opened her suitcase, flopped down on the bed, and tried desperately not to overthink the interaction she’d just had. There was something amazing about Dinah, but (and this was a big but) she seemed a little nervous, too. Was she nervous about being around Helena, the way Helena was nervous around her? Or was she just nervous to have a roommate? 

_Fuck. I’m overthinking. Exactly what I said I wouldn’t do._

She distracted herself by looking around her room. It wasn’t huge, but it was nicer than her motel room, which had some of the ugliest decorations Helena had ever seen. 

Her new room was simple, but clean, with bright white walls and dark wood furniture and a cool lamp on the side table. There was a small closet without any hangers (she’d have to ask Dinah for some), but there were a few piece’s that hinted at Dinah’s aesthetic sensibilities: a textured navy bedspread, and an odd piece of art that looked like it was made of pieces of many gold picture frames, all sticking out at different angles. 

Helena was hit by the sudden realization that she didn’t know what her “aesthetic sensibilities” were. If she walked into a store, what would she like? 

Helena liked the gold art piece on the wall. 

There. 

That was something she knew about herself, something beyond revenge and beyond being a fighter. 

She flicked the lights off in her room and went to go find Dinah. 

Dinah was in the kitchen, making a sandwich. 

“Hey--” 

Dinah whipped around. 

“Jeez, Hel, you scared me!” Dinah was smiling, that bright smile that Helena loved. _Hel._ Dinah called her _Hel_. 

“People tell me I have quiet footsteps.” Helena deadpanned. 

“Probably helpful when you’re in the murder business.” 

“Yeah.” Helena paused. “Can I have a sandwich?” 

“Sure. I have ham, turkey, peanut butter...what do you like?” 

“Turkey sounds good.” 

“Here, it’s on the counter, bread’s in the cabinet up there.” 

Helena grabbed her sandwich ingredients and got to assembling. Her and Dinah had enough of a rhythm in the small kitchen to not bump into each other, even if they were just making sandwiches. 

Of course, it became more than sandwiches. Dinah had pulled out crackers and Helena had started cutting an apple, and they’d grabbed pickles from the fridge and lain it all out on a cutting board. 

“I think they call these things ‘charcuterie’.” Helena said. 

“That’s a five-dollar word. But I thought charcuterie was just cheese boards? I’ll look it up.” Dinah pulled out her phone while Helena started in on her sandwich. “OK, google says we’re both wrong. ‘Charcuterie’ apparently is meat and cheese, and there’s no meat.” 

She grabbed a pickle off the not-charcuterie board. 

“There’s meat in these sandwiches, so maybe this counts as ‘charcuterie’ if we count the whole meal and not just the board?” Helena said. 

“Charcuterie: the remix?” 

“I’m not trying to make this awkward, but what exactly is a ‘remix’? I know what it means in a sentence, but, like, what is it?” 

Dinah laughed. “Sometimes I forget about your weird-ass upbringing. Seriously though, did you not listen to music?” 

“No! I was...busy!” Helena didn’t want to screw up the banter they seemed to have with her social awkwardness, so she took a breath and continued. “I could have. I guess it just felt wrong to have fun or worry about myself for so long after what happened that I lost touch with pop culture, and then it just became habit to not pay attention to that stuff. So, like, I guess I don’t really know what I like or anything.” 

_Wow. That just got personal._ Helena thought. 

“OK. Well, we all have to start somewhere.” That was Helena’s favorite thing about Dinah; she took everything in stride, the way she didn’t judge Helena on her past, the way she didn’t treat Helena like that past had made her fragile. “I can start with what a remix is, and then we have a whole quarantine to figure out what music you like.” Dinah pulled out her phone. “A remix is like a reissue of a song, but maybe with another artist contributing a new verse, or different production. Like this is the original version of the song,” she hit play on a video and the tinny speakers piped out music. The vocals and the production blended together into an upbeat pop song. 

“Ok,” 

“And this is the remix,” Dinah pulled up another video. The song started out the same, but then the beat switched, and a woman started rapping. 

“What song is that? I think I heard it on the radio.” 

“It’s called ‘Say So’ by Doja Cat. And the remix is featuring Nicki Minaj. It’s a cool song because it’s the first time a collaboration between two female rappers has been number one on the charts.” 

“Huh.” 

“Yeah. Took long enough,” Dinah took a bite of her sandwich. 

“Could you tell me more?” 

“Yeah, sure, if you’re interested.” 

“Do you have paper and a pen?” 

“Yeah,” Dinah pushed her chair back to get up and crossed to a white IKEA file-cabinet-type-thing. “Paper is in the top drawer, pens and pencils are in the second drawer.” 

Helena started a mental list of things to remember about Dinah’s apartment. “Thanks.” 

And so, Dinah started trying to cover the cultural monolith that was the last ten years of music. 

“Hel, are you taking notes?”

“Yeah.” Helena deadpanned. 

Dinah laughed. 

“What’s funny?” 

“Sometimes you just say things.” Dinah was teasing Helena, and Helena had the unexpected urge to smile. She had a _friend_ , close to her age, who could tease her good-naturedly, like people did in movies. “Why are you taking notes?”

“I want to look up some of these songs and listen to them.” _I want a list of all the things I like, to prove I’m more than my past,_ she thought. 

“Well, I’d say first thing you should do is download Spotify and set up an account. You can stream pretty much anything from there.” 

“OK.” 

Dinah helped hook Helena up with a Spotify account, and Helena promptly disappeared into the world of songs hand-selected by Dinah. 

Dinah and Helena watched a movie that night. 

Helena still didn’t have any hangers, so she just dumped her suitcase on the floor and made a mental note to ask Dinah for some. 

Late that night, Helena grabbed a sheet of paper and a thick marker from the set of drawers. 

_What I Like_

She wrote on the top, in thick blocky letters.

\--That weird art piece made of gold frames 

\--charcuterie 

She didn’t write “Dinah” yet. 

She wanted to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think! I really like Helena and Dinah as close friends, but I know they're a popular ship, and I'm willing to take a crack at it.
> 
> (If you liked this, chances are this story will get a direct part two later in the anthology)


	4. Hair Dye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harley and Cass dye their hair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I have never bleached my own hair. I did get dipped tips once at a salon years ago, but I barely remember it. I researched a little for this story, but I wasn't too worried about the accuracy here.
> 
> Also, I'm not the most knowledgeable on Harley's backstory, but I decided that some sort of lost love in college was a good catalyst for her to dye her hair, so I went with that.

“So, what color do you want?” Cass asked. Her and Harley were staring contemplatively at the display of at-home hair dye in the grocery store. 

In response, Harley swept her arm across the section of the display devoted to unnatural colors, dumping a rainbow of boxes into the shopping cart. 

“I’m kinda thinkin’ all of them, ya know?” 

“Sounds good. Anything else, Harley?”

“No--wait. Oooh!” She plucked a box of bleach. “I gotta do my roots.” She said, somewhat conspiratorially. 

"Remember last week, when we were here and couldn’t remember what we came here for? Because now I think it was hair bleach.” 

“Hey! That’s right! Mystery solved, kid.” 

“Harley, can you grab some more bleach for me? ‘Cause you definitely can’t use all that dye on your own.” 

Harley grabbed a few more bleach boxes. “If you’re goin’ blonde, we gotta get you shampoo, too.” 

“No, we don’t. I’ve got, like, a full bottle.” 

“Well, once you bleach it, you gotta use all sorts of weird shit, like purple shampoo and hair masks and stuff.” When Cass failed to look suitably impressed, Harley continued. “Bleached hair’s a lot of work, kid.” 

Cass rolls her eyes, but the desire to dye her hair overcomes her teenage moodiness. 

“Ok, Harley, tell me what I gotta do.” 

Harley pushes their cart along to hair care, where she shops in typical Harley fashion—grabbing whatever interests her and chucking it haphazardly in her cart, all the while giving Cass a lecture on proper haircare that veered off topic more often than not, and included a story about a drinking fountain and a wicker chair.. 

“...and I should know, kid, I’ve been a bottle blonde for _years._.” She grabbed some sort of heat styling tool from the shelf. 

“What’s that?” 

“Crimping iron!” Harley said brightly. “Ready to go?” 

Cass nodded and flashed a thumbs up. 

Cass and Harley took off down the aisle. Harley had told Cass that one of the most important parts of a good grocery store robbery was building up enough speed that the cart would bludgeon down anything that got in your way. You also had to laugh (or at least grin) maniacally, but that was more about preserving the aesthetic than actually making the robbery easier. 

Well, it wasn’t like anyone was actually trying to stop her robbing the store. Whatever loss of profits the store suspended from her regular “shopping” trips, it was more than made up for by the revenue from people who switched to Harley’s grocery store of choice in hopes of having a Harley sighting. 

\-- 

Harley and Cass dumped their bags of box dye onto the table. 

“Ready, kid?” 

“Yep!” 

“Grab your bleach and meet me in the bathroom.” 

Cass dug through the pile of boxes before coming up with the bleach box. 

Cass met Harley in the bathroom. Harley had dragged a tall chair into the bathroom, in front of the mirror.

“Sit here, kiddo.” 

Cass plunked down in the chair. “I was thinking just do the tips.” 

“Harley?” 

“Yeah?” Harley looked up from her assault on the cardboard box containing the bleach.

“You have done this before, right?” 

“Totally! On myself, for years, and on, like, fifty percent of the girls in my dorm in college.” 

“How did you get started?” 

“Well, kiddo, I was naturally blonde as a child, and then suddenly I wasn’t anymore. That was a bit of a shock. Well, not really, because it changed from blonde to brown pretty slowly. Anyway, I met this guy in college.” She snapped on her plastic gloves and got to work with the bleach. “We were perfect. Just, not as perfect as he was with that other girl, and I can say that, looking back, I did _not_ handle that breakup well.” 

“Was that before you were..?” Cass trailed off. 

Harley nodded. “When I finally got over him, I needed a change. So, I, like any mature, responsible adult, went to a salon and went platinum.”   
“Really?” Cass scrunched up her face in disbelief. “I guess you did use to be really different.” 

“Ok, fine, that’s not really what happened. I _actually_ got blackout drunk and bleached my hair with a box of bleach I found under the sink. But it worked out! I woke up the next morning a bottle blonde. It was like some sort of metaphor for rebirth. ‘The Hero with a Thousand Faces,’ ya know?” 

Cass nodded, “Yeah. We talked about that in school a while back.” 

“So, I did actually go to the salon, and they were like ‘How the fuck did your hair survive this?’ and I was like ‘No idea, I did this while I was drunk so I don’t actually remember it.’ and they were amazed. This lovely girl named Christine told me how to take care of my hair, and I’ve been a bottle blonde ever since. Alright, you’re all done. It needs to sit for a little. Want some Cheetos?” 

“Would I ever say no to Cheetos?” 

Harley opened one of the drawers next to the sink and pulled out a bag of Cheetos. Cass wasn’t even fazed by that. Harley had food stashed all around her place—Cass once found three packs of gum inside a pillowcase that was currently in use. 

“How long have those _been_ there for, Harley?” 

“Just since yesterday.” 

“How long does this have to sit for?” 

“Like, half an hour or so? It’s not gonna be platinum immediately, just so ya know. If you want it to be platinum, I have to bleach it again, two weeks later.”   
“How do you know this? You went platinum when you were drunk.” 

“Well, the hair ladies were really nice about telling me what I _should_ have done. For a while, I actually did dye my hair ‘correctly.’ Also, thanks to my good luck with my DIY dye job, I became the designated hair stylist in my dorm.” 

“Huh.” Cass grabbed a handful of Cheetos from the bag. “Any ideas on what color you wanna dye your hair?” 

“So many! I need to do my roots, which got me thinking ‘colorful roots are cool’ but then I can’t decide what color I want.” 

Cass pulled out her phone. “I can look for ideas for you.” 

“Thank you!” 

Harley leaned down over Cass’s shoulder, where Cass was scrolling through Pinterest images of women with perfectly styled hair. “Ooooh! How ‘bout that one?” 

“That red one? That could be cute.”

“Wait! Kiddo! I got it! All the colors!” 

“How would that even work?” 

“I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.” 

“Whatever you say, Harley. Actually, I kinda want red tips now, not just bleached ones.” 

“And to think I bought you that purple shampoo. Whatever, more for me!” Harley was busting into the packaging on a second bottle of bleach. “I’m gonna start my roots while yours sits.” 

Harley clearly did know what she was doing. She pulled all her hair off to one side, and section by section painted on the bleach with a flat brush she pulled out from one of the drawers in the bathroom. When she was done, her hair stuck out in all directions—well, more directions than usual. 

“Hey, kid! Time to rinse! Sink or bath?” 

“Bath.” 

Harley turned on the water and Cass knelt down and leaned back into the tub. 

“You gotta move back a little.” 

Cass adjusted and Harley helped rinse the bleach out of the tips of Cass’s hair. _Harley’s like the big sister I never had._ Cass thought, and as much as the idea took her by surprise, it felt _right_ to her. 

“There you go, kid. Hair dryer’s on the counter. Let me rinse mine and then we can do the red part.” 

“Ok.” 

“Alright, move.” Harley said, pushing Cass up. 

Harley leaned back into the bathtub, and Cass plugged in the blow dryer, which, like everything else in the apartment, was colorfully decorated and only semi-functional. Cass and Harley amused themselves, which for Harley meant a keeping a running commentary on every thought in her head as she rinsed and for Cass meant looking at her phone while drying her hair. 

“Hey, Harley!” 

The sound of the water turning off. “Yeah?” 

“I think I found the hair dye for you!”

“Oooh! Show me!” Harley popped up, now with wet (and fully platinum blonde) hair. “Pass me that towel, will ya?” Cass passed the towel back to Harley, who started drying off her hair and looking over Cass’s phone, where a woman was pouring drips of hair dye onto a woman with long, blonde hair. “Oooh!” Harley clapped her hands in excitement. “Perfect!” 

Harley wrapped her hair in a towel and went to survey the pile of box dyes with Cass, who was digging through for a red one. 

Harley grabbed the brightest boxes she saw. Blue, teal, purple, orange, red, the works. 

“Hey, Harley, I’m gonna try to do the red part on my own.” 

“Learning how to dye your own hair is very worthwhile, kid. But if you screw it up, it’s not my fault. I did a great job bleaching, if I do say so myself.” 

“Well, this one says that it’s ‘semi-permanent,’ so if I mess up, it’s no big deal.” 

Harley, however, had already moved on to fishing through a plastic box in the closet. “Found it!” She said, holding up a hair salon robe. “I’m not totally sure what to call these things. Are you a cape? Are you a bib?” 

“Harley, you’re talking to the bib.” Cass said. 

\-- 

“Ya know, normally, I’d never bother with one of these, but I’m kinda thankful I did this time.” Harley said. The bathroom floor was streaked with bright hair dye, but Harley’s neon t-shirt was perfectly clean. 

Cass had finished putting the red in her hair ages ago and had busied herself watching Harley’s misadventures with hair dye. 

Harley released her hair from the towel she had wrapped it in. It was now a messy rainbow of colors, with her platinum still showing through in some spots. 

“Hey, kid! Whatdya’ think?” 

“Nice.” Cass had started playing with Harley’s new crimping iron, using the blank TV screen as a mirror. 

“We’re gonna be the baddest bitches on the Zoom call, aren’t we?” Harley said, throwing an arm around Cass’s shoulder. 

“Hell yeah.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Harley and Cass are _totally_ gonna be the baddest bitches on all the Zoom calls they crash.
> 
> The drip dye Harley did on herself was supposed to be the drip dye technique that went viral a while back. You can google "drip dye" if you're interested in seeing it.


	5. Haircut

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someone left a comment on this a few days ago and I was like "hey. I should write some more" (And Then I Actually Did!)
> 
> what are the odds I'd give you two hair-related chapters in a row? I didn't plan this.

Helena stared down her reflection in the mirror. She was in Dinah’s bathroom, because the light was better, and brandishing a pair of scissors, because she was about to do one of the few things that are universally agreed upon to be a bad idea.

She was going to cut her own hair.

That is, if she could work up the nerve. 

She’d watched videos on YouTube, she’d read articles, put together by women living lives that felt worlds away from hers. She’d planned out her techniques, and grabbed the scissors with the red handles from the desk, but it suddenly didn’t seem quite so easy. 

The first problem was her hair’s length, or lack thereof. Sure, it felt long to her, but it only fell about an inch lower than her shoulders, which made it _very_ hard to see the back. 

Helena gently placed the scissors on Dinah’s sparkling clean bathroom counter—the whole room was impressively clean, but not in the clinical way Helena’s spaces often turned out. Dinah had a small collection of products on the counter, and Helena amused herself for a moment by reading each label—a moisturizer, a sunscreen, some sort of hair product, and in front of those, Helena’s haircutting tools: scissors and a comb. 

Most of the tutorials made it clear the first thing to do is get your hair wet, so she turned the water on and tipped her head into the sink, which was far less elegant in practice than it was in writing. She swished her hair under the water and contemplated whether there was a more efficient way to do this.

She heard the door open and flipped her head up, but just wound up smacking the back of her head into the faucet. She screwed her face up because _jeez_ that hurt. 

“Are you okay?” She heard Dinah say—of course that was who opened the door—as she stepped into the bathroom.

“Yeah…I’ll be fine.” She said, fighting a grimace. 

“You don’t sound too sure about that.”

Helena half-straightened up and flashed two slightly pained thumbs up. 

“OK, then. But your thumbs and your face are telling very different stories.” Dinah laughed a little, and Helena tensed up out of some instinct that told her she wasn’t funny, goddamit 

“It’s not funny.” She said, for lack of anything better to add. 

“What were you trying to do anyway?” Dinah asked.

“What? Oh, I’m going to cut my hair.”

Dinah laughed, for real this time, and Helena didn’t feel that tenseness, even though she wasn’t quite sure why it was funny.

“Yeah? You want some help with that?”

“Thanks, but I, uh,” Helena thought back to her earlier issues with length and inexperience. “I’d..love that. Thank you.”

Dinah crossed the small bathroom to stand behind Helena. The pain where she’d hit her head was fading, and a funny emotion somewhere between nervous and excited was making itself known as she felt Dinah’s fingers run through her hair. She stared at her reflection in the mirror again, now with wet hair that dripped down onto her black t-shirt, but more importantly, not alone. Dinah was behind her, a few inches shorter, dressed in a golden-yellow sweatshirt and black leggings with mesh panels curving across the thighs. 

“How short do you want to go?”

“Huh?” Helena tore her eyes away from Dinah’s thighs and cringed a little internally at the fact she’d been looking…there. “Oh. I was thinking about here.” She indicated a spot, a little longer than her chin.

Dinah picked the comb up from off the counter and got to work. 

“So, what made you decide you wanted a haircut?” Dinah asked, as she center parted Helena’s thick, dark hair.

“I, uh, it kept falling over my face, and I got a hair tie, but it got kinda itchy on the back of my neck, and I remember Harley saying she cut her own hair…” Helena trailed off. 

“Hel, just so you know, ‘Harley did it’ is never, ever a good reason to do something.”

“Yeah…I realized that as I was saying it.”

There was a beat of silence as Helena watched Dinah work—her movements were slow and deliberate, but somehow she seemed like she’d done this before.

“So, who cut your hair when you were in Italy? Assassins aren’t usually known for their haircutting skills.”

“Honestly, if you’re good with a knife, you’re good with a knife.”

Dinah looked up and raised her eyebrows. “They cut your hair with _knives?_

“Well, they did a really good job with it!” Helena paused. “I mean, that was because they were fixing the really bad job I did with it,”

“Wait. So _you_ cut your own hair with a knife? You can’t just say that and not tell me that story.”

“I was a kid!” Helena quieted, and kept talking. “I’d been in Italy for a year. I had really long hair when I was a kid—down to my ribcage—and I remember every morning someone would brush my hair and make sure it looked all nice before school. And then when I was in Italy, I didn’t want anyone to touch it anymore. After a year, it had gotten even longer, and I found a knife and just…”

Dinah had set the comb down and was just listening to Helena, quietly. “You don’t have to tell me, if you aren’t comfortable,”

“No! No. I…want to tell you.” _I want to be close to you, I don’t want to keep my distance from people any longer. I want to let you in._ “I just chopped it off. It felt…really good. That was the day I decided I wanted revenge. It was like some weight had been lifted from my shoulders, and I had enough room to move, stop being…at the mercy of my own life.”

There was a hush, and Helena inhaled sharply— _Did I say too much? Did I make this too personal and too serious?_

“That’s…wow. Funny how things like that can mean so much.” Dinah said. 

“I also watched Mulan a lot as a kid.”

Dinah laughed again, but this time Helena liked it—she hadn’t gone too far, Dinah still wanted to be around her. “What?” Dinah said, incredulous.

“The scene where she cuts off her hair? Yeah.”

“Huh. Alright then.” Dinah smiled, and it made Helena smile, too. “I gotta grab a chair for you to sit in so I can start actually cutting. Cause you’re so tall.”

“Actually, I, uh, had another idea about my hair.”

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Helena sat in the bathroom, on the chair Dinah had brought in.

“Do you like it?” Dinah asked.

Helena admired her hair, now in a longish pixie cut, with her usual side part, textured, the front styled back. “Yeah, I really, really like it.” She said, smiling.

She was in a new chapter now, and this _felt_ new, like the last of her baggage was gone, scattered across the bathroom floor with her old hair. She wasn’t the same girl she’d been when she started training, and she wasn’t even quite the same girl she was when she came to Gotham—change is in the nature of existence, but some changes deserve a mark, a moment, and this was Helena’s. 

This wasn’t a revenge story anymore—she wasn’t just responding to the hand she’d been dealt, she was finding her own cards, her own path.

There was a lot wrapped up in a haircut.

“It’s like a weight off my shoulders.” Is what she finally said, and she meant it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic brought to you by Mary Elizabeth Winstead's new, shorter hair.


End file.
